ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

SaaS market leader for deli­very expe­ri­ence Parcel Perform secu­res 20 million Series A invest­ment from lead inves­tor Cambridge Capi­tal with parti­ci­pa­tion from Soft­Bank Ventures Asia

Profi­ta­ble SaaS market leader for e‑commerce deli­very expe­ri­ence recei­ves stra­te­gic invest­ment from global inves­tors. The funds will be used for further expan­sion and tech­no­logy development.

Berlin — Parcel Perform (www.parcelperform.com), the Berlin and Singa­pore-based leading cloud-based deli­very plat­form for e‑commerce busi­nesses world­wide, secu­res $20 million in a successful Series A finan­cing. Cambridge Capi­tal is acting as lead inves­tor. Soft­Bank Ventures Asia is also invol­ved in the round, as well as exis­ting inves­tors Wave­ma­ker Part­ners and Investible.

Parcel Perform mana­ges over 100 million parcel track­ing updates daily and provi­des real-time trans­pa­rent track­ing data. It also helps compa­nies increase custo­mer reve­nue value by up to 40 percent. Parcel Perform is profi­ta­ble and growing steadily. Sales have increased five­fold since the COVID 19 pande­mic outbreak.

The stra­te­gic invest­ment from leading capi­tal provi­ders will help Parcel Perform soli­dify its tech­no­logy leader­ship posi­tion, as well as drive global expan­sion and team expan­sion. The fresh funds will go toward expan­ding the company’s tech­no­logy offe­rings and advan­cing AI solu­ti­ons: This includes scaling the company’s proprie­tary Date of Arri­val tool, which calcu­la­tes accu­rate fore­casts of a ship­men­t’s arri­val date. In addi­tion, the new funding will be used to estab­lish a regio­nal head­quar­ters in North America. The team of curr­ently 100 employees in the Asia-Paci­fic region and in Europe is to be expan­ded to 150 by the end of the year.

Through the deep indus­try know­ledge of its foun­ding team, Parcel Perform is buil­ding a global busi­ness: Focu­sed on stan­dar­di­zing last mile logi­stics data from over 700 logi­stics provi­ders world­wide. Parcel Perform has the largest data set in the indus­try. Deli­very Expe­ri­ence Plat­form tech­no­logy under­pins the logi­stics decis­ion-making and custo­mer expe­ri­ence of leading e‑commerce compa­nies such as Nespresso. Direct sellers like Water­drop and market­places like Idealo also use the technology.

“E‑commerce is incre­asingly beco­ming the primary retail chan­nel. This makes the need for an excel­lent post-purchase expe­ri­ence busi­ness-criti­cal for dealers:inside. Parcel Perform is uniquely posi­tio­ned to meet this demand with its enter­prise-grade solu­ti­ons and globally stan­dar­di­zed logi­stics data inte­gra­ti­ons. We are very plea­sed that our inves­tors reco­gnize our ability to build a sustainable and profi­ta­ble busi­ness. We alre­ady part­ner with some of the worl­d’s most deman­ding busi­ness custo­mers, helping them opti­mize the satis­fac­tion of their online custo­mers,” says Dr. Arne Jero­schew­ski, CEO and co-foun­der of Parcel Perform.

“Our goal is to build scalable, sustainable, and custo­mer-focu­sed enter­prise soft­ware. In the process, we have grown our team to over 100 employees and expan­ded our custo­mer base from our roots in Asia to work with leading brands, market­places and logi­stics service provi­ders in Europe and North America. Today, we are proud to support hundreds of custo­mers by enab­ling them to use our plat­form as a true diffe­ren­tia­tor in their respec­tive busi­nesses,” adds Dana von der Heide (photo), CCO and co-foun­der of Parcel Perform.

Benja­min Gordon, Mana­ging Part­ner of Cambridge Capi­tal, empha­si­zes, “Cambridge Capi­tal focu­ses exclu­si­vely on global logi­stics and supply chain tech­no­logy. We are plea­sed to part­ner with Arne and Dana as the lead inves­tor in this Series A finan­cing. Visi­bi­lity is an important market in the age of e‑commerce. After evalua­ting many compa­nies world­wide, we are convin­ced that Parcel Perform offers the best solu­tion for visi­bi­lity and customer:inside expe­ri­ence. Parcel Perform has crea­ted a unique value propo­si­tion with the indus­try’s most compre­hen­sive solu­tion that provi­des brands, market­places and carri­ers with end-to-end ship­ment track­ing. Arne and Dana reflect what we are looking for: Outstan­ding Founder:s with exper­tise in the supply chain indus­try and a focus on buil­ding profi­ta­ble growth over the long term.”

“Recent years have high­ligh­ted the importance of global trade and stable supply chains. Parcel Perform has not only laun­ched a scalable, modu­lar enter­prise plat­form, but also built a global commu­nity for e‑commerce experts with “Parcel Moni­tor.” Through their passion for the indus­try, hyper-global approach, and diverse team, they are deli­ve­ring capa­bi­li­ties that will trans­form ever­yo­ne’s expe­ri­ence in last-mile deli­very. We are exci­ted to work with them and support them in their next chap­ter of inno­va­tion in e‑commerce logi­stics,” added Cindy Jin, Part­ner at Soft­Bank Ventures Asia.

The company will conti­nue to expand its strong part­ner and inte­gra­tion network with compa­nies such as AWS and SAP. Parcel Perform recently expan­ded its B2C plat­form “Parcel Moni­tor” into a global commu­nity site. Origi­nally, the tool served as a track­ing service for end users. Curr­ently, it also offers e‑commerce logi­sti­ci­ans free access to logi­stics data.

Parcel Perform has offices in Singa­pore, Viet­nam and Germany. During the expan­sion of its LogTech SaaS busi­ness, Parcel Perform built a diverse team of over 100 employees. The company atta­ches great importance to compli­ance with its own equa­lity objectives.

State­ments from Nespresso, Idealo and other Parcel Perform custo­mers can be found here.
Here you can find more infor­ma­tion about the company as well as picture material.

About Parcel Perform

Parcel Perform is the leading plat­form for deli­very expe­ri­ence. It enables e‑commerce compa­nies world­wide to create compre­hen­sive end-to-end custo­mer expe­ri­en­ces and opti­mize logi­stics opera­ti­ons with powerful data inte­gra­ti­ons, package track­ing, deli­very noti­fi­ca­ti­ons and real-time logi­stics perfor­mance reports. Parcel Perfor­m’s scalable SaaS plat­form performs more than 100 million parcel updates daily from 700 logi­stics service provi­ders. The data-driven company holds a market-leading posi­tion in the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tive machine lear­ning and AI appli­ca­ti­ons in e‑commerce logi­stics. This includes, among other things, the exact predic­tion of the arri­val date of a ship­ment. Parcel Perform is the favored part­ner for leading inter­na­tio­nal brands such as Nespresso, as well as market­places and logi­stics provi­ders across all indus­tries. www.parcelperform.com.

About Cambridge Capital

Cambridge Capi­tal is an invest­ment firm focu­sed on the applied supply chain. The firm provi­des private equity to finance the expan­sion, reca­pi­ta­liza­tion or acqui­si­tion of growth compa­nies in trans­por­ta­tion, logi­stics and supply chain tech­no­logy. Our philo­so­phy is to invest in compa­nies where our opera­ting exper­tise and in-depth supply chain know­ledge can help our port­fo­lio compa­nies achieve outstan­ding value. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.cambridgecapital.com.

About Soft­Bank Ventures Asia

Foun­ded in 2000, Soft­Bank Ventures Asia is the early-stage venture capi­tal arm of the Soft­Bank Group. Its exper­tise lies in ICT invest­ments inclu­ding AI, IoT, and smart robo­tics. Soft­Bank Ventures Asia looks for early to growth-stage start-ups that have strong busi­ness poten­tial in the global market and assist them to be plug­ged into the Soft­Bank ecosys­tem by faci­li­ta­ting side-by-side growth. Soft­Bank Ventures Asia curr­ently opera­tes approx. $1.5B under manage­ment, inves­t­ing in inno­va­tive tech­no­logy start-ups across the world. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit https://www.softbank.co.kr.

News

Frank­furt a.M. — South Kore­a’s leading rene­wa­ble energy company Hanwha Solu­ti­ons Corpo­ra­tion (HSC) plans to acquire RES Médi­ter­ra­née SAS from Rene­wa­ble Energy Systems Limi­ted (RES Group). The Frank­furt and Paris offices of McDer­mott Will & Emery are advi­sing Hanwha Solu­ti­ons Corporation.

The acqui­si­tion, worth 727 million euros, is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of Octo­ber 2021. Foun­ded in 1999 and head­quar­te­red in Avignon, RES Médi­ter­ra­née SAS is active in onshore and offshore wind power, photo­vol­taics, energy storage and repowe­ring, among other areas. The acqui­si­tion of the French project deve­lo­p­ment company of wind and solar power plants is part of Hanwha’s stra­tegy to make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to the energy tran­si­tion and to complete the trans­for­ma­tion into a leading full-service provi­der of rene­wa­ble energy solu­ti­ons. The acqui­si­tion will double Hanwha’s product pipe­line in Europe to around ten giga­watts. The final closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to the comple­tion of the custo­mary employee consul­ta­tion process and custo­mary regu­la­tory approvals.

Hanwha Solu­ti­ons Corpo­ra­tion is a multi­na­tio­nal energy services, petro­che­mi­cal and real estate deve­lo­p­ment company head­quar­te­red in Seoul, South Korea. HSC is the parent company of Hanwha Q‑Cells, one of the worl­d’s leading solar compa­nies. RES Group, foun­ded in 1982 as part of the Sir Robert McAl­pine Group, claims to be the worl­d’s largest inde­pen­dent rene­wa­ble energy company and is head­quar­te­red in Kings Lang­ley, England.

Advi­sors to Hanwha Solu­ti­ons Corpo­ra­tion: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt
Dr. Bernd Meyer-Witting, Florian Lech­ner (both lead partners)
McDer­mott Will & Emery, Paris: Guil­laume Kell­ner (Corporate/M&A), Jilali Maazouz (Labor), Laurent Ayache, Char­lotte Michel­let (both Regu­la­tory), Asso­cia­tes: Boris Wolkoff (Corporate/M&A), Marion Schwartz (Regu­la­tory), Abdel Abdel­lah (Labor), Charles de Raignac (IP)
McDer­mott Will & Emery, Brussels:
Hendrik Viaene; Asso­cia­tes: Caro­line Ruiz Palmer, Karo­lien Van der Putten (all Competition)

News

Karls­ruhe, Germany — Chrono24, a leading global online market­place for new and pre-owned luxury watches, announ­ced that it has secu­red more than €100 million ($118+ million) in its Series C finan­cing round. The round was led by Gene­ral Atlan­tic, a leading global growth capi­tal inves­tor, with parti­ci­pa­tion from Aglaé Ventures, the tech­no­logy arm of the Arnault fami­ly’s invest­ment company. Exis­ting inves­tors Insight Part­ners and Sprints Capi­tal also parti­ci­pa­ted in the round.

Toge­ther with this latest mino­rity growth finan­cing, Chrono24 has raised a total of over €200 million (appro­xi­m­ately $236 million) in funding to date.

Chrono24 plans to use the freshly raised capi­tal to acce­le­rate its growth trajec­tory and further expand inter­na­tio­nally, build its presence in exis­ting markets and streng­then its global team with addi­tio­nal top talent. The company is alre­ady the market leader in over 100 count­ries. The plan is to further improve the user expe­ri­ence of the online market­place in order to bene­fit even more from the flou­ris­hing market for pre-owned luxury watches and to opti­mally serve a new gene­ra­tion of collectors.

Foun­ded in 2003, Chrono24 pionee­red the digi­tiza­tion of the tradi­tio­nally analog luxury watch indus­try: it was one of the first major compa­nies to bring toge­ther watch retail­ers and coll­ec­tors around the world through its online market­place. Today, the plat­form has an average of 500,000 unique visi­tors per day. With more than 3,000 dealers and 30,000 private sellers in over 100 count­ries world­wide, Chrono24 carries appro­xi­m­ately half a million luxury watches for sale at any given time.

Jörn Niko­lay, Mana­ging Direc­tor and respon­si­ble for Gene­ral Atlan­tic’s German busi­ness, says: “Since its foun­ding in 2003, Chrono24 has evol­ved from Karls­ruhe into a global pioneer in crea­ting a cross-border online market­place for luxury watches, with an inno­va­tive model based on trans­pa­rency and sustaina­bi­lity. We are plea­sed to support Chrono24 with our capi­tal and exper­tise as it conti­nues its global expansion.”

Tim Stra­cke, Co-CEO of Chrono24, adds: “Once again, Chrono24 has succee­ded in attrac­ting first-class growth inves­tors such as Gene­ral Atlan­tic and Aglaé Ventures as part­ners. We have initia­ted the concept of an online market­place for luxury watches and built a plat­form that supports and encou­ra­ges chan­ging consu­mer beha­vior. Chrono24 provi­des proof to an indus­try that has tradi­tio­nally always shied away from disrup­tion that such a concept works perfectly. We are very plea­sed that Gene­ral Atlan­tic and Aglaé Ventures reco­gnize the huge market poten­tial of digi­tiz­ing luxury retail and also our role within this industry.”

Chrono24 conti­nues to be led by its foun­der and co-CEO Tim Stra­cke, co-CEO (and former CEO of Team­Viewer) Holger Felg­ner and CFO Stephan Knie­was­ser. In addi­tion to the new inves­tor group, a majo­rity of the exis­ting share­hol­ders, inclu­ding Felg­ner and Knie­was­ser, also co-inves­ted. This new round of finan­cing follows Chrono24’s Series B in 2019, which raised €43 million from Sprints Capi­tal, Gianni Serazzi, a former Riche­mont direc­tor, and Alberto Grignolo, foun­der of YOOX-NET-A-PORTER, among others. Previously, Round A in 2015 had gene­ra­ted over €37 million in seve­ral steps, inclu­ding from Insight Partners.

About Chrono24

“Chrono24 — The Worl­d’s Watch Market” is a leading global online market­place for luxury watches since 2003. With appro­xi­m­ately 500,000 watches from more than 3,000 dealers from over 100 count­ries and over 30,000 private sellers, the portal reaches more than nine million unique visi­tors per month. In 2020, Chrono24 achie­ved growth in tran­sac­tion volume of over 30% with monthly purchase inqui­ries in the six-digit range. With a large combi­ned global offe­ring of new, used and vintage watches, Chrono24 offers a compre­hen­sive service port­fo­lio that allows buyers and sellers to conduct their tran­sac­tions in a trus­ted envi­ron­ment. The global support team provi­des assis­tance via email or phone in 15 diffe­rent languages. Chrono24 was foun­ded in 2003 and employs nearly 400 people in its offices in Karls­ruhe, Berlin, New York and Hong Kong. www.chrono24.com

Gene­ral Atlantic

Gene­ral Atlan­tic is a leading global growth capi­tal inves­tor that provi­des capi­tal and stra­te­gic support to compa­nies with high growth poten­tial. Foun­ded in 1980, the company combi­nes a colla­bo­ra­tive global approach, indus­try-speci­fic exper­tise, a long-term invest­ment hori­zon and a deep under­stan­ding of growth drivers with outstan­ding manage­ment teams to create excep­tio­nal busi­ness models world­wide. Gene­ral Atlan­ti­c’s team includes more than 175 invest­ment profes­sio­nals in New York, Amster­dam, Beijing, Green­wich, Hong Kong, Jakarta, London, Mexico City, Mumbai, Munich, Palo Alto, São Paulo, Shang­hai and Singa­pore. www.generalatlantic.com

About Aglaé Ventures

Aglaé Ventures is an inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment company based in Paris, New York and Los Ange­les. It is supported by Agache, the holding company of the Arnault family and majo­rity share­hol­der of LVMH, the world leader in luxury goods. For nearly 30 years, Agache has supported fast-growing inno­va­tive compa­nies at all stages of their deve­lo­p­ment, inclu­ding Auto­mat­tic, Back­Mar­ket, Mano Mano and Noom in recent months. https://aglaeventures.com/

News

Munich — Munich-based startup Noyes Tech­no­lo­gies has recei­ved initial seed funding of €3.2 million. The finan­cing round, in which 468 Capi­tal and Abacon Capi­tal also parti­ci­pa­ted, was led by GvW client Vsquared Ventures.

Noyes Tech­no­lo­gies deve­lops auto­ma­ted and highly flexi­ble nano-storage systems that provide a space-saving and ther­e­fore cost-effec­tive solu­tion for the logi­stics of indus­trial and commer­cial compa­nies of all kinds. Use cases for the tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped by the company include, for exam­ple, sales in down­town areas through quick deli­very services (quick commerce).

For Vsquared Ventures, this invest­ment fits with its stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in early-stage tech­no­logy-driven compa­nies. The Munich-based venture capi­tal firm’s invest­ment focus areas include robo­tics as well as new space, quan­tum compu­ting, new mate­ri­als and AI.

Advi­sors to Vsquared Ventures: GvW Graf von Westphalen
GvW advi­sed Vsquared Ventures on this tran­sac­tion with a Frank­furt team consis­ting of Titus Walek (lead), Jan Hüni­ken (both venture capi­tal), Kars­ten Kujath (employ­ment law) and Dr. Joachim Mulch (IP).

News

Stutt­gart — Leading French auto­mo­tive supplier Delfin­gen has sold its Tech­ni­cal Belts & Straps Divi­sion, DELFINGEN DE-Münch­berg GmbH to Kairos Indus­tries in a carve-out. The audit and consul­ting firm Ebner Stolz advi­sed the seller Delfin­gen on this transaction.

DELFINGEN DE-Münch­berg GmbH is an inno­va­tive manu­fac­tu­rer of tech­ni­cal texti­les from Münch­berg (Bava­ria). The product port­fo­lio of the company from Upper Fran­co­nia includes nume­rous narrow fabrics, espe­ci­ally tech­ni­cal belts and tapes, which the company offers in various indus­tries. Since the tran­sac­tion, the company has been opera­ting under the old and fami­liar name ‘MBG Tech­belt Inno­va­tion GmbH’ (MBG). The aim is to conti­nue and further deve­lop the manu­fac­tu­rer of tech­ni­cal belts and straps as an inde­pen­dent company.

The buyer is Kairos Indus­tries AG, an indus­trial holding company from Berlin that specia­li­zes in acqui­ring compa­nies in special situa­tions and wants to deve­lop the tradi­tio­nal company in the long term. Kairos’ legal advi­sor was HEUSSEN Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH.

With the acqui­si­tion of the Schlem­mer Group’s Euro­pean and Afri­can busi­ness last year, the Delfin­gen Group streng­the­ned its core busi­ness and the inte­gra­tion of the acqui­si­tion came to the fore. The focus conso­li­da­tes Delfin­gen’s posi­tion as a specia­list for insu­la­tion of liquid-carry­ing and elec­tri­cal systems in the engine compart­ment of vehicles.

DELFINGEN DE-Münch­berg was sold as part of a carve-out process. The current manage­ment will remain with the company in an advi­sory capa­city for a tran­si­tio­nal period in order to ensure the hando­ver of busi­ness opera­ti­ons. Both parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Ebner Stolz accom­pa­nied the entire M&A process from inves­tor search and tran­sac­tion prepa­ra­tion to market approach and inves­tor talks. Delfin­gen was advi­sed by Taylor Wessing on the final purchase agree­ment nego­tia­ti­ons and rela­ted agreements.

Team Ebner Stolz:
Michael Euch­ner (Part­ner, Corpo­rate Finance/M&A), André Laner (Prin­ci­pal, Corpo­rate Finance/M&A), Sebas­tian Rehmet (Consul­tant, Restructuring/M&A), Phil­ipp Dille (Consul­ting Analyst, Corpo­rate Finance/M&A)

Team Taylor Wessing: Dr. Chris­tian Traichel (Part­ner), Dr. Rebekka Krause (Part­ner), Chris­tian Dietz (Asso­ciate)

Team HEUSSEN: Robert A. Heym (Part­ner in Lead, Corporate/M&A), Philip Herbst (Part­ner, Employ­ment), Kilian Knes­tel (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A)

News

Colo­gne — NRW.BANK is inves­t­ing in CEVEC Phar­maceu­ti­cals GmbH via NRW.Venture as part of a growth finan­cing round. The Colo­gne-based company is active in the gene therapy market and is a leading provi­der of tech­no­lo­gies for the produc­tion of biophar­maceu­ti­cals. The invest­ment is inten­ded to expand capa­ci­ties for the growing gene therapy market.

“Gene thera­pies have become an important future market in phar­maceu­ti­cals and biotech­no­logy,” says Dr. Aris­to­te­lis Nastos, Team Leader Life Scien­ces / Venture Capi­tal at NRW.BANK and member of the Advi­sory Board of CEVEC Phar­maceu­ti­cals GmbH “The poten­tial for tech­no­lo­gies such as those offe­red by CEVEC is enorm­ous and we are plea­sed to be part of this finan­cing round and to support the company’s further growth.”

Gene thera­pies are being deve­lo­ped for dise­a­ses such as cancer, Alzhei­mer’s and Parkin­son’s, among others, leading to a high demand for produc­tion capa­city. CEVEC offers phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies modern manu­fac­tu­ring solu­ti­ons here. To address the growing market, the company plans to use the funds from the finan­cing round to expand its capacity.

NRW.BANK has held a stake in CEVEC Phar­maceu­ti­cals GmbH since 2009 and has been support­ing the company with its network and capi­tal ever since. Through NRW.Venture, it supports start-ups and young compa­nies from North Rhine-West­pha­lia in the deve­lo­p­ment and marke­ting of inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and busi­ness models and the rapid expan­sion of their business.

About NRW.Venture

NRW.Venture is the venture fund of NRW.BANK, the deve­lo­p­ment bank for North Rhine-West­pha­lia. It supports its owner, the state of NRW, in its struc­tu­ral and econo­mic policy tasks. To this end, NRW.BANK uses a wide range of deve­lo­p­ment instru­ments: from low-inte­rest deve­lo­p­ment loans to equity finan­cing and consul­ting services. With NRW.Venture, it supports start-ups in the deve­lo­p­ment and marke­ting of inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and busi­ness models and the rapid expan­sion of their busi­ness. NRW.BANK invests up to ten million euros in such compa­nies over seve­ral finan­cing rounds — toge­ther with private-sector inves­tors. www.nrwbank.de/venture

News

Munich — Sola­ris­bank AG has raised a further 190 million euros in its largest finan­cing round to date. The valua­tion of the FinTech, which was foun­ded in 2016, now stands at €1.4 billion. Sola­ris­bank thus joins the ranks of the so-called unicorns. At the same time, the company acqui­res the British compe­ti­tor Contis. POELLATH also advi­sed Sola­ris­bank AG on the Series D finan­cing round of 190 million euros, as it did on the earlier rounds.

The round was led by Decisive Capi­tal Manage­ment, with support from growth inves­tors inclu­ding Pathway Capi­tal Manage­ment, CNP (Groupe Frère) and Ilavska Vuil­ler­moz Capi­tal. Exis­ting inves­tors yabeo, BBVA, Vulcan Capi­tal and HV Capi­tal also parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round. With the current round, the total volume of capi­tal raised amounts to 350 million euros.

More than half of the fresh capi­tal will go to the Contis acqui­si­tion, accor­ding to Sola­ris­bank. The acqui­si­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted within the next three months. The acqui­si­tion of Contis enables expan­sion into the UK, which had previously been hampe­red by Brexit. The Contis site and jobs are to be retai­ned after the takeover.

Like Sola­ris­bank, the British company Contis also offers banking-as-a-service services, but prima­rily with a focus on payment card issu­ance and processing.

Sola­ris­bank is Euro­pe’s leading banking-as-a-service plat­form. As a tech­no­logy company with a full German banking license, Sola­ris­bank enables other compa­nies to offer their own finan­cial services. Through APIs, part­ners inte­grate Sola­ris­ban­k’s modu­lar finan­cial services directly into their own product offe­rings. In Germany, for exam­ple, the Samsung Pay payment system of the South Korean tech­no­logy group Samsung runs on the Sola­ris­bank platform.

Consul­tant Sola­ris­bank: POELLATH

Cris­tian Toenies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/VC, Munich/Berlin)
Dr. Sebas­tian Käpplin­ger, LL.M. (Penn State), (Part­ner, Regu­la­tory Law, Frankfurt)
Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Lead Part­ner, M&A/VC, Munich/Berlin)
Markus Döll­ner (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/VC, Munich)
Leonard Pietsch (Asso­ciate, M&A/VC, Munich)

POELLATH has been regu­larly advi­sing Sola­ris­bank on finan­cing rounds since its foun­da­tion in 2016.

News

Heidel­berg — The AI rese­arch and appli­ca­tion startup Aleph Alpha recei­ves 23 million euros in its second round of finan­cing. As Aleph Alpha’s first insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tor, LEA Part­ners welco­mes the new Series A inves­tor set with Early­bird VC, Lake­star and UVC Part­ners on board. Toge­ther with the seed finan­cing of €5.3 million in Novem­ber 2020, the total finan­cing volume grows to €28.3 million. With the newfound and repea­ted support of Euro­pe’s leading deep-tech inves­tors, Aleph Alpha can further acce­le­rate the inde­pen­dent deve­lo­p­ment of cutting-edge AI systems and conti­nue to expand its team of world-class AI rese­ar­chers, engi­neers and deli­very professionals.

Euro­pean AI Powerhouse

Head­quar­te­red in Heidel­berg, Germany, Aleph Alpha was foun­ded in 2019 by AI serial entre­pre­neur Jonas Andru­lis and Samuel Wein­bach. They bring toge­ther a high-cali­ber team of AI veterans, serial entre­pre­neurs, and a new gene­ra­tion of AI engi­neers coming from CERN, Apple, DARPA, and other pres­ti­gious orga­niza­ti­ons, who toge­ther are deve­lo­ping and opera­tio­na­li­zing large-scale AI systems towards gene­ra­lizable AI. Aleph Alpha will offer GPT-3-like text, image, and stra­tegy AI models via an API in the future. These will enable part­ners from the public and private sectors to moder­nize exis­ting busi­ness models as well as deve­lop new, inno­va­tive busi­ness models in data-based value creation.

Aleph Alpha’s commu­nity-driven and inter­di­sci­pli­nary approach ensu­res that tecto­nic shifts in the global AI land­scape are aligned with Euro­pean values and ethi­cal stan­dards. Aleph Alpha and its part­ner network are crea­ting a strong and sove­reign Euro­pean inno­va­tion network that supports more equi­ta­ble access to modern AI rese­arch — with the goal of coun­tering the ongo­ing “de-demo­cra­tiza­tion”, mono­po­liza­tion, and loss of control and trans­pa­rency in the global AI industry.

Jonas Andru­lis, CEO and foun­der of Aleph Alpha:

“Aleph Alpha’s mission is to enable acces­si­bi­lity, usabi­lity, and inte­gra­tion of large-scale, Euro­pean, multi­l­in­gual, and multi­mo­dal AI models along the lines of GPT‑3 and DALL‑E by driving inno­va­tion for explaina­bi­lity, adapt­a­tion, and inte­gra­tion. The funding signi­fi­cantly acce­le­ra­tes the process of brin­ging the latest gene­ra­tion of AI tech­no­logy into use and ensu­res digi­tal sove­reig­nty for our public and private sector part­ners in Europe and beyond.”

Secu­ring Euro­pean AI sovereignty

From model trai­ning to appli­ca­tion, Aleph Alpha guaran­tees the data sove­reig­nty of indi­vi­du­als and orga­niza­ti­ons and returns control of norma­tive value alignment to the deve­lo­per. This makes Aleph Alpha an indis­pensable success factor for the digi­tiza­tion of the private and public sectors in Europe.

Nils Seele, Prin­ci­pal at LEA Partners:

“When we first met Jonas and the team, it was imme­dia­tely clear that we shared a common vision toward gene­ra­li­zing arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. For LEA, as the lead inves­tor in the seed funding round, it’s great to see the impres­sive setting that has come toge­ther over the last few months to help the Aleph Alpha team build Euro­pean sove­reig­nty in AGI.”

A New Age of Human-Machine Interaction

Aleph Alpha’s gene­ra­li­zing AI models extend and enhance human capa­bi­li­ties in deal­ing with any type of data. The tech­no­logy is capa­ble of under­stan­ding and gene­ra­ting complex text based on mini­mal human input and acts as a virtual assistant in a new gene­ra­tion of human-machine inter­ac­tion. Such deep contex­tual under­stan­ding was previously the exclu­sive domain of human experts. These new func­tion­a­li­ties will trans­form human inter­ac­tions with infor­ma­tion by struc­tu­ring know­ledge, respon­ding to complex tasks, or trans­forming, summa­ri­zing, and struc­tu­ring highly specia­li­zed, bureau­cra­tic, or legal language into easily unders­tood ever­y­day language.

About Aleph Alpha

Aleph Alpha is a Heidel­berg-based AI rese­arch and appli­ca­tion company that rese­ar­ches, deve­lops, and opera­tio­na­li­zes gene­ra­li­zing AI models for text, vision, and stra­tegy at scale to ensure digi­tal sove­reig­nty for public and private sector partners.

About LEA

LEA Part­ners, as an entre­pre­neu­rial equity part­ner, supports foun­ders and manage­ment teams at diffe­rent stages of deve­lo­p­ment in their growth and achie­ve­ment of a leading market posi­tion. Based in Karls­ruhe, one of the largest tech­no­logy clus­ters in Europe, LEA Part­ners has mana­ged invest­ments in nume­rous tech­no­logy compa­nies since 2002. With 260 million euros of capi­tal under manage­ment and two invest­ment vehic­les, LEA Part­ners is able to contri­bute substan­tial added value to the deve­lo­p­ment of tech­no­logy compa­nies with a strong network of opera­tio­nal sector experts as well as stra­te­gic part­ners. www.leapartners.de

News

Paris / Berlin — Listed global invest­ment firm Eura­zeo announ­ced the final closing of the Idin­vest Private Debt V fund at €1.5 billion. This is the company’s fifth direct lending vehicle, which was still laun­ched under the name of its subsi­diary Idin­vest Partners.

Toge­ther with 500 million euros origi­na­ting from private debt secon­dary funds and invest­ment manda­tes, Eura­zeo’s current private debt program thus amounts to 2 billion euros. More than 70 percent of inves­tors are not from France. In total, Eura­zeo mana­ges around 5 billion euros in the asset class.

The Private Debt V fund is alre­ady almost 80 percent inves­ted, and the launch of Eura­zeo Private Debt VI is alre­ady in the plan­ning stage.

Eura­zeo’s private debt team has been active in the market for almost 15 years, giving it invest­ment expe­ri­ence of more than 120 tran­sac­tions and across seve­ral econo­mic cycles. The stra­tegy focu­ses on compa­nies with an enter­prise value of between €30 million and €300 million. In Germany, the port­fo­lio includes Avenga, Netgo and Yieldkit.

Fran­çois Lacoste (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner and Head of Private Debt at Eura­zeocomm­ents: “In these unusual times, we are very grateful for the contin­ued support of our inves­tors and the trust they have placed in us, and we are proud to have excee­ded our initial fund­rai­sing target. We are convin­ced that the private debt market will conti­nue to be a source of new oppor­tu­ni­ties for Eura­zeo. We are keen to invest in high-performing and promi­sing compa­nies, along­side top manage­ment teams and spon­sors in Europe.”

About EURAZEO

Eura­zeo is a leading global invest­ment group, with a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of €22.7 billion in assets under manage­ment, inclu­ding €16.0 billion from third parties, inves­ted in 450 compa­nies. With its considera­ble private equity, private debt, real estate and infra­struc­ture exper­tise, Eura­zeo accom­pa­nies compa­nies of all sizes, support­ing their deve­lo­p­ment through the commit­ment of its nearly 300 profes­sio­nals and by offe­ring deep sector exper­tise, a gate­way to global markets, and a respon­si­ble and stable foot­hold for trans­for­ma­tio­nal growth. Its solid insti­tu­tio­nal and family share­hol­der base, robust finan­cial struc­ture free of struc­tu­ral debt, and flexi­ble invest­ment hori­zon enable Eura­zeo to support its compa­nies over the long term.
Eura­zeo has offices in Paris, New York, São Paulo, Seoul, Shang­hai, Singa­pore, London, Luxem­bourg, Frank­furt, Berlin and Madrid. — Eura­zeo is listed on Euron­ext Paris.

News

New York/ Frank­furt a. M. / Munich — The Munich, Frank­furt and New York offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP have advi­sed Char­ge­Point Holdings, Inc. on the acqui­si­tion of has-to-be GmbH. The purchase price is appro­xi­m­ately EUR 250 million (subject to adjus­t­ments) and will be paid in both cash and shares. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval and custo­mary closing conditions.

has-to-be GmbH is a leading provi­der of elec­tro­mo­bi­lity soft­ware in Europe, head­quar­te­red in Austria, in which Volks­wa­gen was also inves­ted along­side private shareholders.
Char­ge­Point Holdings, Inc. head­quar­te­red in Camp­bell, Cali­for­nia, opera­tes the worl­d’s largest network of elec­tric vehicle char­ging stati­ons with a wide range of services in North America and Europe.

After merging with Switch­back Energy Acqui­si­tion Corpo­ra­tion, a SPAC (Special Purpose Acqui­si­tion Company) focu­sed on compa­nies in the energy value chain, Char­ge­Point is the worl­d’s first EV char­ging infra­struc­ture network to become publicly traded with a listing on the NYSE in March 2021.

The Weil team was led by Munich Corpo­rate Part­ner Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt and was supported by Part­ners Manuel-Peter Fringer, Dr. Barbara Jagers­ber­ger (both Corpo­rate, Munich), Tobias Geer­ling (Tax, Munich) as well as Coun­sel Dr. Felix Ganzer (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Florian Wessel (Corporate/Regulatory, Munich), Benja­min Rapp (Tax, Munich), Dr. Konstan­tin Hoppe (IP/IT, Munich) and asso­cia­tes Andreas Fogel, Corne­lia Tu, Amelie Zabel, Maxi­mi­lian Schmitt (all Corpo­rate, Munich), Stef­fen Giolda (Corporate/Regulatory, Frank­furt), Mareike Pfeif­fer (Labor Law, Frank­furt) and Mario Kuhn (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt). The New York team included corpo­rate part­ners Amanda Fens­ter and Frank Adams and corpo­rate asso­ciate Joseph Viscomi.

About Weil, Gotshal & Manges

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,100 lawy­ers, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 300 part­ners. Weil is head­quar­te­red in New York and has offices in Boston, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Beijing, Prince­ton, Shang­hai, Sili­con Valley and Washing­ton, D.C.

News

Paris/ London/ Berlin — Eura­zeo announ­ced the final closing of its third growth equity fund at €1.6 billion. Of this amount, 320 million euros came from the balance sheet of the Eura­zeo Group and 200 million euros from private inves­tors. In total, the Group mana­ges just under 23 billion euros.

The stra­tegy was laun­ched in 2014 and is focu­sed on tech­no­logy compa­nies in soft­ware as a service, digi­tal health, cyber­se­cu­rity, infra­struc­ture soft­ware, fintech and online market­places. Eura­zeo Growth invests tickets from €25–100 million and above from Series C. In France, 24 of the “Next 40” compa­nies are part of Eura­zeo’s Growth port­fo­lio, inclu­ding unicorns Back­mar­ket, Contents­quare, Docto­lib, Mano­Mano and Vesti­aire Collective.

In addi­tion, the 15-member team is repre­sen­ted in London by Natha­lie Korn­hoff-Brüls, a German, and in Berlin by Zoé Fabian, who was recently named Inves­tor of the Year by the German Start­ups Asso­cia­tion. In Germany, Eura­zeo Growth is curr­ently inves­ted in PPRO, the largest infra­struc­ture provi­der for cross-border alter­na­tive payment methods, and in insur­tech wefox. In Febru­ary, Berlin-based adtech startup Adjust, in which Eura­zeo Growth also had a stake, was sold to Applo­vin for just under $1 billion.

About EURAZEO

Eura­zeo is a leading global invest­ment group, with a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of €22.7 billion in assets under manage­ment, inclu­ding €16 billion from third parties, inves­ted across 450 compa­nies. With its considera­ble private equity, private debt, real estate and infra­struc­ture exper­tise, Eura­zeo accom­pa­nies compa­nies of all sizes, support­ing their deve­lo­p­ment through the commit­ment of its nearly 300 profes­sio­nals and offe­ring in-depth sector exper­tise, a gate­way to global markets, and a respon­si­ble and stable foot­hold for trans­for­ma­tio­nal growth. Its solid insti­tu­tio­nal and family share­hol­der base, robust finan­cial struc­ture free of struc­tu­ral debt, and flexi­ble invest­ment hori­zon enable Eura­zeo to support its compa­nies over the long term. Eura­zeo Growth III is mana­ged by Eura­zeo Invest­ment Manager.
Eura­zeo has offices in Paris, New York, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Shang­hai, Singa­pore, London, Luxem­bourg, Frank­furt, Berlin and Madrid. Eura­zeo is listed on Euron­ext Paris.

News

Berlin — Early-stage inves­tor and opera­tio­nal VC Project A was part of the Series D finan­cing round of Euro­pe’s leading digi­tal wealth mana­ger for private clients LIQID . The round is worth €88 million and was led by LGT, one of the worl­d’s largest family-owned private banking and asset manage­ment groups. In addi­tion to Project A, HQ Trust, the multi-family office of the Harald Quandt family, and Dieter von Holtz­brinck Ventures also parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round. Upon comple­tion of the round, LGT will be LIQI­D’s largest inves­tor along­side Tosca­fund Asset Manage­ment of London. Benja­min Ullrich, Martin Scha­per and Martyna Sabat of YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to VC Project A.

Co-foun­ded by Chris­tian Schnei­der-Sickert, CEO (photo), Berlin-based LIQID offers sophisti­ca­ted private clients digi­tal access to invest­ment stra­te­gies and oppor­tu­ni­ties previously available only to high-net-worth and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors for a frac­tion of the tradi­tio­nal mini­mum invest­ment. This includes award-winning asset manage­ment as well as profes­sio­nally cura­ted port­fo­lios of private equity, venture capi­tal and real estate funds. Since 2018, LIQID says it has doubled client assets under manage­ment each year and curr­ently mana­ges over €1.4 billion. The Series D finan­cing round is subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval and includes a secon­dary component.

Consultant:inside Project A: YPOG
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (lead), Part­ner, Dr. Martin Scha­per (co-lead), Partner
Dr. Martyna Sabat, Senior Associate.

About YPOG
YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm, opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax, tran­sac­tions and nota­rial services. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, the firm has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, YPOG employs more than 70 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. Further infor­ma­tion: www.ypog.law

News

Munich / Markst­sch­or­gast / Auen­grund — The Vitru­lan Group, based in Markt­sch­or­gast, Germany, is taking over the textile glass busi­ness based in Brat­ten­dorf (Auen­grund) of the medium-sized Preiss-Daim­ler Group. The specia­list for tech­ni­cal products made of textile glass, part of the Munich-based indus­trial holding ADCURAM since 2016, is thus streng­thening its market posi­tion in the segment of sophisti­ca­ted, deco­ra­tive texti­les made of glass fibers. The tran­sac­tion has alre­ady been successfully comple­ted. Both parties have agreed not to disc­lose the details.

The former PD Glas­fa­ser Brat­ten­dorf produ­ces deco­ra­tive texti­les made of glass fabric and glass fleece with about 70 employees in Auen­grund, Thurin­gia. Around 15 million euros per year are imple­men­ted. For the Vitru­lan Group, based in Markt­sch­or­gast, Bava­ria, the acqui­si­tion repres­ents a further step in the successful imple­men­ta­tion of its buy & build stra­tegy: “Vitru­lan is the quality leader for complex and func­tional deco­ra­tive wall cove­rings based on glass fiber. The tech­ni­cal capa­bi­li­ties, product range and inter­na­tio­nal brands of the new colle­agues in Brat­ten­dorf will now further boost growth — through more flexi­ble produc­tion opti­ons, shorter deli­very times and thus over­all more effi­ci­ent custo­mer service,” comm­ents ADCURAM invest­ment part­ner Broder Abra­ham­sen on the acquisition.

ADCURAM had alre­ady acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the tradi­tion-rich Vitru­lan Group with around 470 employees in 2016 as part of a succes­sion plan and has since been support­ing it in new invest­ments, geogra­phi­cal expan­sion and the deve­lo­p­ment of new custo­mer groups. The Vitru­lan Group consists of Vitru­lan Textile Glass GmbH, which produ­ces wall and ceiling cove­rings made of glass yarn in Markt­sch­or­gast, and Vitru­lan Tech­ni­cal Texti­les GmbH, which manu­fac­tures tech­ni­cal texti­les in Sonne­berg (Hasel­bach, Thurin­gia), espe­ci­ally for the cons­truc­tion indus­try. Under the aegis of ADCURAM and the board of direc­tors Dr. Phil­ipp Gusinde (photo), Henry Bricken­kamp and Michael Feldt, the newly foun­ded V4heat GmbH was also added in 2018 as a third main­stay — it manu­fac­tures intel­li­gent infrared heating systems based on glass mesh fabrics. In addi­tion, the tech­ni­cal textile busi­ness of the Ahlström-Munk­sjö Group was acqui­red in 2019 through Vitru­lan Compo­si­tes Oy in Mikkeli, Finland, thus adding compe­ten­cies in new textile and fiber tech­no­lo­gies, in parti­cu­lar carbon and multiaxial know-how, to the Group.

About ADCURAM
ADCURAM is a priva­tely owned indus­trial group. ADCURAM acqui­res compa­nies with poten­tial and deve­lops them actively and sustain­ably. For the future growth of the Group, the capi­tal-strong indus­trial holding company has a total of 300 million euros available for acqui­si­ti­ons. With the help of its own 40-strong team of experts, the indus­trial holding company conti­nues to deve­lop the port­fo­lio compa­nies stra­te­gi­cally and opera­tio­nally. Toge­ther, the group gene­ra­tes more than 500 million euros in sales with five holdings and over 3,000 employees worldwide.

ADCURAM sees itself as an entre­pre­neu­rial inves­tor and invests in succes­sion plans and corpo­rate spin-offs. www.adcuram.com

News

Munich — Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed Hohn­haus & Jansen­ber­ger and Cathay Capi­tal on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of medifa health­care group, an owner-opera­ted and globally active medi­cal tech­no­logy company for opera­ting rooms.

The product and service port­fo­lio of the medifa health­care group covers the complete range from modu­lar wall, door and ceiling systems to mobile opera­ting tables, opera­ting room access­ories and opera­ting room lights to exami­na­tion chairs for gyneco­logy, urology and proc­to­logy. In addi­tion, one of the largest German OEM suppli­ers in the medi­cal tech­no­logy sector also belongs to the Group.

Hohn­haus & Jansen­ber­ger, based in Munich, is mana­ged by the entre­pre­neurs Dr. Wolf­gang Hohn­haus and Peter Jansen­ber­ger. Its stra­tegy is to acquire compa­nies and deve­lop them further by, among other things, taking on mana­ging direc­tor positions.

Cathay Capi­tal is a leading private equity firm focu­sed on cross-border invest­ments. Shear­man & Ster­ling most recently advi­sed Cathay on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the Plet­ten­berg-based auto­mo­tive supplier E. WINKEMANN.

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team led by part­ner Winfried M. Carli, photo (Munich-Finance) included asso­cia­tes Marius Garnatz (Frank­furt-Finance) and Nils Holzg­refe (Munich-Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 25 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling has offices in Frank­furt and Munich. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

News

Frank­furt — The global busi­ness law firm 
Norton Rose Fulbright
 streng­thens its banking and finance prac­tice in Frank­furt with part­ner Dr. Stefan Schramm and coun­sel Caro­lin Glän­zel. The firm’s expe­ri­en­ced struc­tu­red finance profes­sio­nals repre­sent lenders, private equity inves­tors, spon­sors and borro­wers in the origi­na­tion, syndi­ca­tion, secu­ri­tiza­tion and restruc­tu­ring of dome­stic and cross-border real estate, corpo­rate (inclu­ding acqui­si­tion), project and asset finan­cings. The two have alre­ady been working toge­ther for about ten years.

Caro­lin Glän­zel, photo, moved from the law firm Ever­s­heds Suther­land as early as July 1, 2021. Stefan Schramm will succeed him on August 1, 2021.

“With Dr. Stefan Schramm and Caro­lin Glän­zel, we are gaining two renow­ned lawy­ers in the field of struc­tu­red finance. Germany is an important market for Norton Rose Fulbright, and such expe­ri­en­ced and well-connec­ted colle­agues give our team a further boost,” explains 
Dr. Oliver Sutter
, head of Norton Rose Fulbrigh­t’s German banking and finance practice.

Head of Germany 
Dr. Stefan Feuerriegel
 adds, “The two are an excel­lent addi­tion and an excel­lent rein­force­ment of our German prac­tice. They will accom­pany our prac­tice on its way to the next stage of growth.”

“Norton Rose Fulbrigh­t’s banking and finance prac­tice is parti­cu­larly distin­gu­is­hed by its excel­lent inter­na­tio­nal network and compre­hen­sive exper­tise in the rela­ted areas of law that are important to our clients. This provi­des us with an excel­lent plat­form for our work. We are looking forward to being part of the team and to being able to contri­bute our many years of expe­ri­ence here in the future,” empha­si­zes Dr. Stefan Schramm.

The German
Banking and Finance Law Practice
 of Norton Rose Fulbright advi­ses clients on acqui­si­tion and loan finance, asset and project finance, and regu­la­tory advice to funds and asset manage­ment. In April, the team was streng­the­ned with the addi­tion of the regulatory 
Dr. Ute Brunner-Reumann
 was added to the team.

About Norton Rose Fulbright

Norton Rose Fulbright is a global busi­ness law firm. With more than 4,000 lawy­ers in over 50 offices world­wide in Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Austra­lia, Africa and the Middle East, we advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal companies.

We offer our clients compre­hen­sive advice in all major indus­tries. These include Finan­cial Insti­tu­ti­ons; Energy; Infra­struc­ture, Mining and Commo­di­ties; Trans­por­ta­tion; Tech­no­logy and Inno­va­tion; and Life Scien­ces and Health­care. Our global Risk Advi­sory Group combi­nes this exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence with its exper­tise in legal, regu­la­tory, compli­ance and gover­nance matters. This enables us to provide our clients with prac­ti­cal solu­ti­ons to the legal and regu­la­tory risks they face.

Where­ver we operate, we act in accordance with our busi­ness prin­ci­ples of “Quality, Unity and Inte­grity”. We provide legal services of the highest stan­dard and main­tain this level of quality in every contact.

News

Berlin/Krefeld — The Nort­hern Euro­pean invest­ment company Verdane, which specia­li­zes in growth capi­tal, has acqui­red a stake in Krefeld-based KF Design GmbH, the manu­fac­tu­rer of design and gift artic­les under the REMEMBER brand. Verdane acqui­res a majo­rity stake from Wieland Capi­tal and the foun­ders as part of the tran­sac­tion with the aim of driving the further digi­tiza­tion of the busi­ness model.

REMEMBER was foun­ded in 1996 and offers an ever-growing range of indi­vi­dual design, life­style and gift items, inclu­ding games, fashion access­ories, calen­dars, home, kitchen and office products. All items are deve­lo­ped and desi­gned in-house. REMEMBER has alre­ady recei­ved nume­rous design awards for the design and work­man­ship of its products. The company sells its product range through direct sales as well as through German and inter­na­tio­nal retail­ers. Among other places, they are available in the museum stores of the Guggen­heim Muse­ums in Bilbao and Venice and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and San Francisco.

Toge­ther with manage­ment, Verdane plans to drive the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of the busi­ness model, the further deve­lo­p­ment of the custo­mer expe­ri­ence and the contin­ued expan­sion of the sustaina­bi­lity of REMEM­BER’s product range. Plans include the further deve­lo­p­ment and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of the online store with expan­ded func­tions and an increased custo­mer approach via digi­tal chan­nels. Verda­ne’s team brings its exten­sive expe­ri­ence in e‑commerce and tech­no­logy-based B2C busi­ness models, such as from its invest­ments in momox, asgoo­das­new, smava, Dese­nio and Boozt. REMEMBER will bene­fit from the coope­ra­tion with Verda­ne’s in-house experts from the so-called Elevate team as well as from a newly estab­lished advi­sory board in the opera­tio­nal imple­men­ta­tion of these measures.

Ingo Fremer, co-foun­der and co-CEO of REMEMBER, said: “I am extre­mely happy with how REMEMBER has deve­lo­ped over the past 25 years and would like to thank our previous co-owner Wieland Capi­tal for the successful coope­ra­tion, without which the company would not be where it is today. With Verdane as a part­ner, we can now build on further momen­tum and draw on many years of expe­ri­ence in the field of e‑commerce to take REMEMBER to the next level of deve­lo­p­ment. In parti­cu­lar, we want to offer our custo­mers a more inten­sive brand expe­ri­ence and even better products, as well as reach new custo­mers in exis­ting and new markets.”

Maroje Guertl, Prin­ci­pal in Verda­ne’s Berlin office, added: “REMEMBER is a brand stee­ped in history with charisma in the German and inter­na­tio­nal market, which stands for time­l­ess design and the highest quality. We see great poten­tial for REMEMBER to conti­nue and even acce­le­rate this successful development.”

About Verdane

Verdane is an invest­ment company specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal that supports compa­nies with sustainable and tech­no­logy-based busi­ness models in their inter­na­tio­nal growth. Verdane invests as a mino­rity or majo­rity inves­tor in indi­vi­dual compa­nies or port­fo­lios of compa­nies, focu­sing on three core themes: Digi­tal Consu­mer, Soft­ware and Sustainable Society. Verda­ne’s funds have capi­tal commit­ments of three billion euros. Since 2003, the company has inves­ted in more than 120 fast-growing compa­nies. Verda­ne’s team of more than 70 employees, with offices in Berlin, Copen­ha­gen, Helsinki, London, Oslo and Stock­holm, is commit­ted to being the best part­ner for growth capi­tal in Nort­hern Europe. www.verdane.com

News

Bangkok/ Frank­furt am Main — Advent Inter­na­tio­nal (“Advent”), one of the worl­d’s largest and most expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment compa­nies, has announ­ced the sale of global leading synthe­tic resin manu­fac­tu­rer allnex Holding GmbH (“allnex”) to PTTGC Inter­na­tio­nal (Nether­lands), a wholly owned subsi­diary of PTT Global Chemi­cal Public Company Limi­ted (“PTTGC”) head­quar­te­red in Bang­kok. The Frank­furt-based company is valued at around EUR 4 billion in the tran­sac­tion, which corre­sponds to 12.2 times LTM’s March 2021 EBITDA.

allnex is a manu­fac­tu­rer of synthe­tic resins for the paint and coatings indus­try and offers a wide range of coating poly­mers and addi­ti­ves — inclu­ding powder resins, water-solu­ble indus­trial synthe­tic resins, UV resins, synthe­tic resin cross­lin­kers and addi­ti­ves for use on wood, metal, plas­tics and other surfaces, for exam­ple. With sales of around 2 billion euros and appro­xi­m­ately 4,000 employees, the company is the market leader in resins for indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons, inclu­ding in the auto­mo­tive and pack­a­ging indus­tries. With its global produc­tion network of 33 manu­fac­tu­ring sites and 23 rese­arch and tech­no­logy centers, allnex supports custo­mers around the world. The company has been a pioneer in sustainable inno­va­tions for the paint and coatings indus­try for over 70 years. Here, allnex focu­ses on envi­ron­men­tally friendly tech­no­lo­gies, such as water-based resins or powder resins.

With more than 30 successfully comple­ted tran­sac­tions, Advent is one of the most expe­ri­en­ced private equity inves­tors in the chemi­cal indus­try. Advent acqui­red the coating resins busi­ness from Cytec Indus­tries in 2013 as part of a carve-out. Over the past eight years, Advent has estab­lished the busi­ness as an inde­pen­dent company under the name allnex and streng­the­ned its market posi­tion through seve­ral acqui­si­ti­ons and orga­nic growth. With the acqui­si­tion of compe­ti­tor Nuplex in 2016, allnex expan­ded its busi­ness in growth markets and became the global market leader. With Adven­t’s support, the company has inves­ted signi­fi­cantly in growth, more than doubling the number of its employees, produc­tion faci­li­ties, rese­arch and tech­no­logy centers, and custo­mers. In total, Advent has allo­ca­ted more than €1.5 billion for growth.

Ronald Ayles (photo), mana­ging part­ner and head of the global chemi­cal indus­try prac­tice at Advent Inter­na­tio­nal., said, “Over the past eight years, we have guided the allnex manage­ment team from spin-off to global market leader­ship as a manu­fac­tu­rer of indus­trial coating resins. Our heavy invest­ment in growth has fueled allnex’s success — espe­ci­ally in envi­ron­men­tally friendly tech­no­lo­gies. With PTTGC, we have now found the ideal part­ner to support the next phase of allnex’s growth and conti­nue the success story.”

The new owner PTTGC is a subsi­diary of PTT Group, Thai­lan­d’s largest energy company

The Group opera­tes inter­na­tio­nally and is a Fortune 500 company. PTTGC produ­ces and distri­bu­tes basic petro­che­mi­cals and inter­me­dia­tes as well as chemi­cal down­stream products for the pack­a­ging, textile and auto­mo­tive indus­tries, among others. In the past two years, the company ranked first in the “Chemi­cals” cate­gory of the Dow Jones Sustaina­bi­lity Index.

PTTGC’s goal is to streng­then its leading posi­tion in the chemi­cal busi­ness with envi­ron­men­tally friendly inno­va­tions and advan­ced tech­no­lo­gies. The company is a long-term inves­tor and will support allnex to expand its access to the Asia Paci­fic (APAC) region, which offers great growth poten­tial for the coatings indus­try. In addi­tion, PTTGC will streng­then allnex’s presence in growth markets and provide impro­ved access to raw materials.

“allnex is the global market leader in synthe­tic resins for the paint and coatings indus­try. With its broad product port­fo­lio, stable earnings, and as a pioneer in green tech­no­lo­gies, allnex is ideally posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from the three mega­trends in the indus­try: the incre­asing demand for high-perfor­mance coating resins, the ongo­ing growth trend towards emer­ging markets, and the move towards sustainable coating solu­ti­ons. We look forward to lever­aging this growth poten­tial toge­ther with the allnex team.”
The sale of allnex is expec­ted to close in Q4 2021, subject to regu­la­tory approvals.

Advi­sor Advent: Allen & Overy
Led by part­ner Dr. Helge Schä­fer (Hamburg), toge­ther with part­ners Dr. Michiel Huizinga (Frank­furt) and Gordon Milne (London) as well as coun­sel Alex­an­der Wüpper (Frank­furt) and senior asso­ciate Monika Przy­goda (London, all Corporate/M&A/Private Equity).
The entire team included well over 100 lawy­ers from a wide variety of prac­tice groups in 18 Allen & Overy offices worldwide.

About Advent International

Foun­ded in 1984, Advent Inter­na­tio­nal Corpo­ra­tion is one of the worl­d’s largest and most expe­ri­en­ced private equity inves­tors. The company has comple­ted over 375 private equity tran­sac­tions in 42 count­ries and mana­ges assets of €64 billion (as of March 31, 2021). With 14 offices in 11 count­ries, Advent has built a globally inte­gra­ted team of more than 240 invest­ment profes­sio­nals in North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia. The company focu­ses on invest­ments in five core sectors, inclu­ding finan­cial and busi­ness services, health­care, chemi­cals and indus­tri­als, retail, consu­mer products and leisure, and technology.

Advent has inves­ted in over 30 compa­nies in the chemi­cal indus­try in recent years. Examp­les include Röhm, one of the global market leaders in methacry­late chemis­try, allnex, a leading global supplier of synthe­tic resins for the paint and coatings indus­try, and Oxea, a leading supplier of oxo alco­hols and oxo deri­va­ti­ves. Advent has also inves­ted in compa­nies such as VIAKEM, a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of fine chemi­cals, and GTM, a trans­na­tio­nal distri­bu­tor of chemi­cal raw mate­ri­als in Latin America.

After 35 years dedi­ca­ted to inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment, Advent Inter­na­tio­nal Corpo­ra­tion remains commit­ted to working with manage­ment teams to deli­ver sustainable reve­nue and profit growth for its port­fo­lio compa­nies. www.adventinternational.de

News

Berlin — Alli­an­z’s digi­tal invest­ments unit Alli­anz X has inves­ted in the used car plat­form heycar Group (Mobi­lity Trader Holding GmbH), in which Daim­ler Finan­cial Services, among others, had alre­ady taken a 20 percent stake in Septem­ber 2018.

Alli­anz X was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by members of the YPOG team (YPOG’s prede­ces­sor law firm was called SMP). YPOG part­ners Stephan Bank and Frede­rik Gärt­ner were the lead part­ners in this tran­sac­tion. KNPZ assis­ted in the area of IP/IT/data protec­tion and PWWL in the area of labor law. UK coun­sel was Fox Williams.

heycar is an inter­na­tio­nal digi­tal sales plat­form for high-quality used cars. Exis­ting inves­tors include Volks­wa­gen, Volks­wa­gen Finan­cial Services and Daim­ler Mobi­lity. Alli­anz Part­ners, a leader in B2B2C insu­rance and assis­tance services, will become the insu­rance part­ner for heycar in all exis­ting and future markets for the next five years, accor­ding to the company.

The coope­ra­tion will add Alli­anz insu­rance products and services to the heycar plat­form, which will be seam­lessly inte­gra­ted into the custo­mer jour­ney. By part­ne­ring with heycar Group, Alli­anz confirms its commit­ment to digi­tal busi­ness models with the poten­tial to funda­men­tally change the mobi­lity sector. Alli­anz will offer essen­tial car insu­rance products via the plat­form and expand them with a variety of addi­tio­nal offe­rings such as roadside assis­tance and warranty. In this way, heycar beco­mes a holi­stic and custo­mer-centric mobi­lity provi­der, cove­ring both conven­tio­nal offline sales by dealers and the growing end-to-end online transactions.

Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, heycar Group has become one of the leading sales plat­forms for high-quality used cars of nume­rous auto­mo­bile brands in Europe. Follo­wing its launch in Germany, the company now also opera­tes in the UK and Spain.

“We are very plea­sed to have advi­sed Alli­anz X on this tran­sac­tion and also congra­tu­late heycar on this part­ner­ship. The online used car market has great poten­tial,” says YPOG part­ner Stephan Bank.

Advisor:inside Alli­anz X: YPOG Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten und Steu­er­be­ra­tern mbB Schnittker+Partner
Dr. Stephan Bank (Corpo­rate, Lead Part­ner), Partner
Dr. Frede­rik Gärt­ner (Corpo­rate, Lead Part­ner), Partner
Jonas Huth (Corpo­rate), Associate
Konstan­tin Häfner (Corpo­rate), Associate
Pia Meven (Corpo­rate), Associate
Daniela Machado (Corpo­rate), Senior Foreign Associate

Other law firms involved:
IP/IT/Data Protec­tion: KNPZ (Dr. Kai-Uwe Plath, Matthias Struck, Jan Schäfer)
Employ­ment Law: PWWL (Eckbert Müller, Dr. Marius Fritsche)
UK Coun­sel: Fox Williams (Richie Clark, Sarah Carlton)

About Alli­anz X

Alli­anz X is the digi­tal invest­ment unit of the Alli­anz Group.
We are inves­t­ing in digi­tal growth compa­nies that are part of the ecosys­tems rela­ted to insu­rance. We iden­tify and invest in the best digi­tal front­run­ners that are stra­te­gi­cally rele­vant for the Alli­anz Group. We provide an inter­face between port­fo­lio compa­nies and the digi­tal ecosys­tem within Alli­anz as well as drive inno­va­tion across Alli­an­z’s opera­ting enti­ties and global lines of busi­ness. www.allianzx.com

News

Munich/ Norway — SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte advi­ses Norwe­gian Volue ASA on the acqui­si­tion of ProCom GmbH. Follo­wing the signing of the contracts, the auto­ma­tion busi­ness will be spun off and Volue will take over ProCom’s entire energy busi­ness. With this, Volue gains an annual turno­ver of 3 million euros, about 60 employees and more than 60 customers.

The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in Septem­ber 2021 and is subject to certain condi­ti­ons agreed between the parties.

Volue is a market leader in tech­no­lo­gies and services that drive green trans­for­ma­tion. With more than 650 employees, Volue serves more than 2,000 custo­mers in the energy, power grid, water and infra­struc­ture project sectors. The company is head­quar­te­red in Oslo, Norway, and opera­tes in more than 40 countries.

ProCom GmbH offers tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons for the energy sector and rela­ted indus­tries. The company, which is head­quar­te­red in Aachen and has offices in Colo­gne and Berlin, serves custo­mers prima­rily in Germany.

Advi­sor to Volue: SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte, Munich
Dr. Matthias Nord­mann (M&A, lead), Eva Bona­cker (M&A), Nicole Wolf-Thomann (Commer­cial), Dr. Ulrich Reber (Restruc­tu­ring), Dr. Matthias Orthwein (IT and Data Protec­tion), Dr. Stefan Pein­tin­ger (IP), Alex­an­der Möller (Labor Law), Heiko Wunder­lich (Tax Law); David Solberg (Corporate/Commercial)
CLP, Oslo/Norway: Lars Gunnar Aas, Kris­toffer Gjes­dahl (both M&A)

About SKW Schwarz Attor­neys at Law

SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte is an inde­pen­dent German law firm with over 120 lawy­ers in four loca­ti­ons. SKW Schwarz advi­ses compa­nies ranging from owner-mana­ged busi­nesses to listed stock corpo­ra­ti­ons, as well as private clients, in all major areas of natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness law.

News

Linz (ÖS) — DLA Piper has advi­sed Cloudf­light as an exis­ting inves­tor in a finan­cing round tota­ling €1.3 million for Linz-based HR tech startup Team­Echo. In addi­tion to the exis­ting inves­tors, Team­Echo was able to secure the parti­ci­pa­tion of well-known inves­tors in the German-spea­king region with seed + speed Ventures, Cars­ten Maschmey­er’s VC fund, the invest­ment vehicle 8eyes around Runta­stic foun­der Florian Gschwandt­ner and the OÖ HightechFonds.

Renow­ned soft­ware deve­lo­per and AI solu­tion provi­der Cloudf­light helps compa­nies drive their digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion, deli­ve­ring scalable, flexi­ble custom soft­ware that can be imple­men­ted quickly and seam­lessly across the enterprise.

Team­E­cho’s anony­mous employee feed­back tool helps custo­mers create a work envi­ron­ment where ever­yone can reach their full poten­tial. As a conti­nuous mood baro­me­ter, the tool provi­des an up-to-date view of the working atmo­sphere at any time and allows emer­ging problems to be iden­ti­fied as they arise and solu­ti­ons to be found. Since the foun­da­tion of Team­Echo, Cloudf­light has supported the foun­ding team in the deve­lo­p­ment of the soft­ware product and the successful estab­lish­ment of the company.

Advi­sor Cloudf­light: DLA Piper
With a team led by part­ner Simon Vogel (Corporate/Private Equity, Munich)

About DLA Piper

DLA Piper is one of the worl­d’s leading commer­cial law firms, with offices in more than 40 count­ries in Africa, Asia, Austra­lia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. In Germany, DLA Piper is repre­sen­ted by more than 250 lawy­ers at its offices in Frank­furt, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. In certain juris­dic­tions, this infor­ma­tion may be conside­red attor­ney adver­ti­sing. www.dlapiper.com

News

Frank­furt am Main — Triton sells Meine Radio­lo­gie to EQT Infra­struc­ture — with a remar­kable balance sheet. Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) successfully comple­tes its invest­ment in the radio­logy group blikk with the sale to EQT. EQT intends to merge the two compa­nies into an even larger radio­logy chain.

Successful exit at Triton: The private equity inves­tor sells the radio­logy chain Meine Radio­lo­gie Holding to EQT Infra­struc­ture. They are also acqui­ring the Blikk radio­logy group from DBAG, which also expects high proceeds from the sale.

Triton was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Roth­schild, White & Case, Gibson Dunn, EY and L.E.K. Consul­ting. Accor­ding to an insi­der, the leverage is up to 6.5x Ebitda.

Triton had acqui­red Meine Radio­lo­gie, which at the time still opera­ted under the name “Deut­sche Radio­lo­gie Holding”, directly from the then owner Tempus Capi­tal in Janu­ary 2019 as part of an “off-market dialo­gue” that star­ted back at the end of 2018. The finan­cial inves­tor made the invest­ment from its first smal­ler-midcap fund; in the mean­time, Triton is alre­ady inves­t­ing from its second midmar­ket fund.

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the contract. DBAG and DBAG Fund VII conti­nue to see good deve­lo­p­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for blikk and are ther­e­fore inves­t­ing a signi­fi­cant portion of the return flow in a re-invest­ment of up to 15 percent; DBAG accounts for up to three percen­tage points of this. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the current quar­ter, subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory approvals.

With the tran­sac­tion, DBAG reali­zes proceeds from the sale that are signi­fi­cantly higher than the valua­tion of the invest­ment in DBAG’s most recent IFRS inte­rim finan­cial state­ments (March 31, 2021). The addi­tio­nal, unplan­ned value added amounts to around 26 million euros. The net asset value of the private equity invest­ments and the Group’s net income increase by this amount.

This value contri­bu­tion was not included in the fore­cast for the net asset value of the private equity invest­ments as of Septem­ber 30, 2021 and the Group’s earnings for fiscal 2020/2021, which was last confirmed on May 12, 2021. DBAG had most recently expec­ted the net asset value of the private equity invest­ment to be between 450 and 505 million euros (before net inflows from the capi­tal increase) as of Septem­ber 30, 2021, and conso­li­da­ted net income for fiscal 2020/2021 to be between 70 and 80 million euros. DBAG is curr­ently prepa­ring its quar­terly state­ment as of June 30, 2021. This will take into account the unplan­ned value contri­bu­tion from the tran­sac­tion. The two above-mentio­ned ratios may be influen­ced by further posi­tive or nega­tive effects from the valua­tion of the remai­ning port­fo­lio compa­nies as of the report­ing date of June 30, 2021 and by other findings in the course of prepa­ring the finan­cial statements.

First sale of the DBAG Fund VII portfolio
The sale of the invest­ment in the blikk Group is the first sale of a manage­ment buy-out (MBO) from the DBAG Fund VII port­fo­lio. The fund had struc­tu­red ten MBOs between 2017 and 2021; the fund’s invest­ment period has not yet ended. With DBAG Fund VII, DBAG imple­men­ted the concept of a so-called top-up fund for the first time: It makes it possi­ble to invest up to 200 million euros of equity in indi­vi­dual tran­sac­tions, more than twice the amount other­wise targe­ted. 105.7 million was inves­ted in the blikk Group, also using the top-up fund. 18.7 million of this amount is attri­bu­ta­ble to DBAG, which so far holds a calcu­la­ted share of around eleven percent in blikk. The radio­logy group’s MBO was agreed in March 2017, but due to a complex appr­oval process, it did not take effect until May 2019.

The radio­logy group blikk (www.blikk.de) combi­nes nume­rous radio­lo­gi­cal and nuclear medi­cine care centers (MVZ) with nearly 30 loca­ti­ons as well as a hospi­tal. Regio­nal focal points exist in North Rhine-West­pha­lia (Bochum/Herne/Unna) and in Berlin. Appro­xi­m­ately 150 physi­ci­ans provide care to about one million pati­ents annu­ally in the prac­ti­ces. The entire range of radio­lo­gi­cal and nuclear medi­cine services is offe­red, from conven­tio­nal X‑rays, mammo­gra­phy, ultra­sound, fluo­ro­scopy, angio­gra­phy and compu­ted tomo­gra­phy to inter­ven­tio­nal radio­logy and magne­tic reso­nance imaging (MRI). In addi­tion to daily routine radio­logy, the blikk group provi­des medi­cal specia­lists and experts for all areas (e.g. neuro­ra­dio­logy, cardiac imaging, onco­lo­gi­cal radio­logy, rheu­ma­to­lo­gi­cal radio­logy, pedia­tric radio­logy, prostate imaging) for diffi­cult and rare ques­ti­ons as well as for special pati­ent needs due to its size and expe­ri­ence, in addi­tion to the appro­priate equip­ment technology.

One of the leading provi­ders of radio­lo­gi­cal services in Germany
In the past four years, the Group has grown by adding further MVZs and sites; further acqui­si­ti­ons are plan­ned. Group sales for the current year are expec­ted to be around 103 million euros, some 50 million euros more than at the start of the invest­ment. Since then, inten­sive efforts have gone into impro­ving services for patients.

“It has been shown that with the funds of a finan­cial inves­tor, the services for pati­ents in this capi­tal-inten­sive medi­cine can be signi­fi­cantly impro­ved,” said Tom Alzin, member of the DBAG Manage­ment Board on the occa­sion of the signing of the agree­ment: “We want to parti­ci­pate in the further growth of the group through our return parti­ci­pa­tion along­side the new investor.”

“DBAG has been a great part­ner to us,” expres­sed Thilo-Andreas Witt­käm­per, MD, Mana­ging Part­ner of the blikk Group. And: “Now we will receive addi­tio­nal capi­tal for the deve­lo­p­ment of the Group and can further improve the medi­cal offe­ring and pati­ent care.

About DBAG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial. One focus for many years has been indus­try. An incre­asing propor­tion of equity invest­ments are in compa­nies in the growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services/software and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to €2.5 billion.

News

Frank­furt am Main / Colo­gne — VR Equi­typ­art­ner sells the e‑commerce sani­tary specia­list MEGABAD to the invest­ment company FSN Capi­tal. Toge­ther with the foun­ding family Stil­ler, VR Equi­typ­art­ner remains a mino­rity share­hol­der and supports the further expan­sion of MEGABAD.

The tradi­tio­nal Colo­gne-based company Gott­fried Stil­ler, foun­ded in 1973 as a sani­tary trade specia­list, has been selling via its own webshop MEGABAD.com since 2003, making it the first sani­tary retailer in Germany with an online sales chan­nel. Toge­ther with VR Equi­typ­art­ner, the company succes­sion was initia­ted in 2019 and, in paral­lel, the company’s growth course was streng­the­ned and consis­t­ently continued.

FSN Capi­tal, with its e‑commerce exper­tise as the new majo­rity share­hol­der, will build on the company’s strong market posi­tion in its core markets and drive inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to anti­trust clearance. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Foun­ded in 1932, the Gott­fried Stil­ler Group is conside­red the largest sani­ta­ry­ware retailer in Colo­gne and, in addi­tion to two specia­list stores, opera­tes the webshop MEGABAD.com, a pioneer in its segment and one of the leading German sani­ta­ry­ware online retail­ers. As “The profes­sio­nal for the bath­room”, MEGABAD specia­li­zes in the sani­tary sector and offers a full range of fittings, cera­mics, shower enclo­sures, bath­room furni­ture and access­ories for private custo­mers as well as craft­smen and trades­men. The MEGABAD Group employs 220 people and sells products from all well-known manu­fac­tu­r­ers as well as high-quality own brands. The company has grown signi­fi­cantly in recent years and will conti­nue to bene­fit from e‑commerce market growth in the future.

Toge­ther with the invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner, a succes­sive succes­sion plan was initia­ted in the family-owned company in 2019 and, in paral­lel, the basis was laid for further acce­le­ra­tion of the growth course. With Harald Hotop, an expe­ri­en­ced indus­try specia­list (form­erly Rich­ter + Fren­zel and Ideal Stan­dard) could be won for the manage­ment of the group. At the end of the current year, the company will enter the market with a new warehouse concept and a doubling of logi­stics capa­city. This crea­tes the basis for a signi­fi­cant increase in sales, even beyond the boun­da­ries of the markets previously served.

“We have been able to achieve important mile­sto­nes with VR Equi­typ­art­ner in recent years. For the next growth steps, we jointly looked for another inves­tor and found the right part­ner in FSN Capi­tal. We are very much looking forward to working toge­ther in this circle,” says Stefan Stiller.

“We remain convin­ced of MEGA­BA­D’s outstan­ding busi­ness model and long-term growth pros­pects. Toge­ther with the Stil­ler family and the manage­ment, we were able to imple­ment the company’s succes­sion and signi­fi­cantly streng­then the group’s market posi­tion,” explains Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner. Justin Kent, Part­ner at FSN Capi­tal Part­ners, added: “MEGABAD is a great fit for our port­fo­lio and we are very much looking forward to working with the Stil­ler family, Harald Hotop and VR Equi­typ­art­ner to conti­nue MEGA­BA­D’s expan­sion in the DACH region and inter­na­tio­nal markets.”

About VR Equitypartner
VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equi­typ­art­ner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 60 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million. www.vrep.de.

The tran­sac­tion team at VR Equitypartner:

Tim Feld (Member of the Manage­ment Board), Hedwig Holken­brink, Hendrik Horn­bo­gen, Jens Schöf­fel, Jens Osthoff

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:

GCA Altium
Latham & Watkins
KPMG
OMMAX

News

Berlin — Berlin-based solar start-up Enpal has raised another EUR 100 million in its largest finan­cing round to date.

The round of inves­tors was led by HV Capi­tal; other inves­tors included Thomas Grie­sel, foun­der of the cooking box company HelloFresh, as well as Chris­to­pher Muhr, ex-mana­ger of the used car trading plat­form Auto1, and Peter Rive, cousin of Elon Musk and co-foun­der of the green energy produ­cer Solar­city. In addi­tion, many exis­ting inves­tors, such as the foun­ders of the mail order company Zalando, are also on board, as is the venture capi­tal firm Picus Capi­tal with Alex­an­der Samwer or Lukasz Gadow­ski, the foun­der of the current Dax company Deli­very Hero. Actor Leonardo DiCa­prio is also indi­rectly invol­ved through an invest­ment by the Climate Tech­no­logy Fund.

Enpal offers solar panels and batte­ries for rent instead of purchase start­ing at EUR 49/month. This price alre­ady includes instal­la­tion, main­ten­ance and insu­rance. The self-gene­ra­ted elec­tri­city belongs to the custo­mer, who can purchase the plant at the end of the contract period for a symbo­lic price of one euro. The aim is to make it chea­per and, above all, more conve­ni­ent for homeow­ners to install a photo­vol­taic system. The busi­ness model has its model in the USA, where the leasing of solar plants has become estab­lished as a stan­dard solution.

Wall­bo­xes, char­ging stati­ons for elec­tric cars, will soon be available as part of the package. Rene­wa­ble heating solu­ti­ons will also be available in the leasing model in the future. The online solar provi­der was foun­ded in 2017 by Mario Kohle, co-foun­der of Around­home (form­erly known as Käufer­por­tal), and claims to have comple­ted more than 8,000 solar projects in the mean­time. This makes Enpal a leader in solar leasing and has tripled its earnings with over 4,500 systems instal­led in 2020. No other German solar company mana­ged this.

POELLATH advi­sed Enpal also in the context of this finan­cing round with the follo­wing team:
Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/VC, Munich/Berlin)
Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Coun­sel, M&A/VC, Munich/Berlin)
Markus Döll­ner (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/VC, Munich)

About POELLATH

POELLATH is a market-leading inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness and tax law firm with more than 150 lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in Berlin, Frank­furt and Munich. We stand for high-end advice on tran­sac­tions and asset manage­ment. We offer legal and tax services from a single source. In our selec­ted and highly specia­li­zed prac­tice groups, we not only know the law, but also shape best prac­tice in the market toge­ther with our clients. Natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal rankings regu­larly list our consul­tants as leading experts in their field.

We offer compre­hen­sive services in the follo­wing areas: Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons | Private Equity | Venture Capi­tal | Private Funds | Real Estate Tran­sac­tions | Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Markets | Finan­cing | Tax | Succes­sion and Wealth | Foun­da­ti­ons and Non-Profit Orga­niza­ti­ons | IP/IT, Distri­bu­tion and Anti­trust | Liti­ga­tion and Arbitration.

News

Berlin — Dec Group, a port­fo­lio company of capi­ton V Fund and the worl­d’s leading supplier of contain­ment powder hand­ling systems, has acqui­red the Extract Tech­no­logy busi­ness unit from US-listed Wabash Natio­nal Corpo­ra­tion, a company listed on the New York Stock Exch­ange. BMH BRÄUTIGAM advi­sed the DEC Group on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Extract Tech­no­logy (UK / US).

Extract Tech­no­logy is a leading provi­der of contain­ment and asep­tic systems for the phar­maceu­ti­cal, biotech, nuclear and chemi­cal markets. Extract is head­quar­te­red in Hudders­field, UK, with an addi­tio­nal site in New Lisbon, USA, serving the fast-growing US market.

Advi­sor DEC Group: BMH BRÄUTIGAM in rela­tion to the finan­cing and acqui­si­tion of further shares in group companies.
Dr. Andrea Reichert-Clauß, David Thüning, Tina Schmidt, Till Wans­le­ben (all Private Equity ǀ Corporate/M&A)

For aspects of Swiss law, BMH BRÄUTIGAM consul­ted MLL Meyer­lus­ten­ber­ger Lache­nal (lead Dr. Chris­toph Heiz) from its inter­na­tio­nal network.
The BMH BRÄUTIGAM team has been advi­sing capi­ton for years, inclu­ding on the acqui­si­tion of the DEC Group.

Other advi­sors to DEC:

xtSho­os­miths (Legal UK / Tran­sac­tion, led by Simon Proc­ter), PwC (Finan­cial), EY (Tax).

Advi­sors to banks: Baker McKen­zie (lead Dr. Philip Spoerlé, Zurich).

News

Heil­bronn, Heidelberg/Boston — Prota­gen Protein Services (PPS) today announ­ced that it will merge with Gene­Werk, an Amper­sand port­fo­lio company. With the addi­tion of Gene­Wer­k’s unique capa­bi­li­ties in vector safety, charac­te­riza­tion, and func­tion­a­lity analy­sis, PPS will comple­ment its current analy­ti­cal test­ing offe­ring in protein charac­te­riza­tion iden­tity, purity, potency and capsid loading to become a full-service part­ner in gene therapy test­ing for the biophar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try. — ACXIT Capi­tal Part­ners advi­sed the majo­rity share­hol­der of Prota­gen Protein Services on the merger with GeneWerk

The merger crea­tes a leading part­ner for the world­wide biophar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try to bene­fit from the most advan­ced, inte­gra­ted set of analy­ti­cal services capa­bi­li­ties in biolo­gic deve­lo­p­ment, espe­ci­ally in gene and cell therapy-rela­ted test­ing, from early deve­lo­p­ment through drug appr­oval to commer­cia­liza­tion. The combi­ned orga­niza­tion will have more than 175 employees across four sites in Europe and North America.

“The combi­na­tion of Prota­gen Protein Services (PPS) and Gene­Werk will estab­lish a leading, analy­ti­cal CRO serving the most thri­ving and inno­va­tive thera­peu­tic segments within the global biophar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try. We are exci­ted to join forces with the Gene­Werk team, who have estab­lished unique, world­wide excel­lence in cell and gene therapy and helped to estab­lish the indus­try stan­dard of inte­gra­tion site analy­sis for all vector deli­very systems,” outlined Martin Blüg­gel, CEO Prota­gen Protein Services GmbH.

“We are impres­sed by PPS’ scien­ti­fic back­ground and are eager to join with our scien­ti­fic excel­lence. By inte­gra­ting our analy­tic plat­forms, programs and exper­tise with PPS, we look forward to working closely with premier biophar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies to design, gene­rate and deli­ver inte­gra­ted, best-in-class analy­ti­cal data packa­ges and stra­te­gic support along the full deve­lo­p­ment spec­trum from deve­lo­pa­bi­lity, lead opti­miza­tion, clone selec­tion and process deve­lo­p­ment to vector safety, gene editing targets, sequence analy­sis and gene expres­sion,” commen­ted Dr. Manfred Schmidt, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Co-Foun­der of Gene­Werk GmbH.

As part of today’s announce­ment, PPS noted that it plans to signi­fi­cantly expand the labo­ra­tory capa­bi­li­ties of its US subsi­diary BioAna­ly­tix to include Gene­Wer­k’s tech­no­logy plat­forms and analy­ti­cal capa­bi­li­ties in order to better serve clients loca­ted in the Boston area biotech­no­logy hub and else­where in North America. Such service capa­bi­li­ties will include the deter­mi­na­tion of fusion sequen­ces adja­cent to known DNA or RNA frag­ments in mini­mal tissue samples down to the single cell level.

To support the inte­gra­tion and future growth of the combi­ned busi­ness, PPS also announ­ced that Amper­sand Capi­tal Part­ners has acqui­red a majo­rity owner­ship stake in PPS from Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn, PPS’s initial private equity investor.
Marina Pellon-Consunji, Part­ner at Amper­sand Capi­tal Part­nersstated: “We have been looking for the right oppor­tu­nity to expand the capa­bi­li­ties of our port­fo­lio company Gene­Werk. We are proud to part­ner with the PPS team and look forward to helping further build a leading provi­der of inno­va­tive, scien­ti­fi­cally-diffe­ren­tia­ted test­ing and analy­ti­cal services for large mole­cule thera­peu­tics, parti­cu­larly in the rapidly-growing cell and gene therapy industry.”

About Prota­gen Protein Services GmbH (PPS)

Prota­gen Protein Services (PPS) is a world leading CRO and reco­gni­zed expert in analy­ti­cal services in protein science and gene therapy products. Over 20 years of market expe­ri­ence and the compre­hen­sive spec­trum of vali­da­ted analy­ti­cal methods ensure the highest quality for custo­mers in the phar­maceu­ti­cal, biotech and life science indus­try. The company is an excel­lent part­ner for the biophar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try world­wide to bene­fit from the most advan­ced, inte­gra­ted and complete analy­tic services capa­bi­li­ties and plat­forms in biophar­maceu­ti­cal deve­lo­p­ment, from clone selec­tion through drug appr­oval to commer­cia­liza­tion. In working toge­ther with their phar­maceu­ti­cal part­ners, the PPS teams gene­rate best-in-class analy­tic data packa­ges and provide scien­ti­fic, tech­ni­cal and regu­la­tory support to advance, de-risk and acce­le­rate all stages of biophar­maceu­ti­cal deve­lo­p­ment by all-in-one-hand service with complete docu­men­ta­tion and outstan­ding project manage­ment to gain market success. www.protagenproteinservices.com

About Gene­Werk GmbH

Foun­ded in 2014 by Prof. Dr. Chris­tof von Kalle, Dr. Manfred Schmidt, and Dr. Annette Deich­mann with the parti­ci­pa­tion of the German Cancer Rese­arch Center (DKFZ) Heidel­berg, Gene­Werk is a cell and gene therapy test­ing labo­ra­tory focu­sed on provi­ding precli­ni­cal and clini­cal trial pati­ent sample analy­sis services. The company is reco­gni­zed as a leading provi­der of vector inte­gra­tion site analy­sis (ISA) services, a method that was deve­lo­ped by the company’s foun­ders and that the FDA and EMA recom­mend performing after the admi­nis­tra­tion of both inte­gra­ting and non-inte­gra­ting cell and gene thera­pies. www.genewerk.com

About Amper­sand Capi­tal Partners

Foun­ded in 1988, Amper­sand is a middle market private equity firm with more than USD 2bn of assets under manage­ment dedi­ca­ted to growth-orien­ted invest­ments in the health­care sector. With offices in Boston and Amster­dam, Amper­sand lever­a­ges its unique blend of private equity and opera­ting expe­ri­ence to build value and drive supe­rior long-term perfor­mance along­side its port­fo­lio company manage­ment teams. Amper­sand has helped build nume­rous market-leading compa­nies across each of the firm’s core health­care sectors. Addi­tio­nal infor­ma­tion about Amper­sand is available at www.ampersandcapital.com.

About zfhn Future Fund Heilbronn

Since its foun­da­tion in 2005, the zfhn Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn has been one of the major venture capi­tal provi­ders in Germany. It prima­rily supports young, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies that are loca­ted in the Heil­bronn area or are prepared to settle there in the short to medium term. The zfhn is priva­tely finan­ced and endo­wed with equity capi­tal in the three-digit million range. It supports compa­nies with capi­tal, know-how and cont­acts in the Heil­bronn econo­mic region. The aim is to deve­lop Heil­bronn into a highly successful tech­no­logy loca­tion. This also includes the estab­lish­ment and expan­sion of clus­ters (MedTech, BioTech, Clean­Tech). www.zf-hn.de

Advi­sor: Tran­sac­tion Team ACXIT Capi­tal Partners
Thomas Klack, Mana­ging Partner
Klaus Nest­ler, Part­ner Life Sciences
Bastian Spren­ger, Director
Andreas Illmer, Associate

ACXIT Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading inter­na­tio­nal corpo­rate finance and finan­cial advi­sory firm for mid-market clients, and entre­pre­neurs in Europe and beyond. Since 1998, we offer our clients compre­hen­sive corpo­rate finance advi­sory services inclu­ding M&A and capi­tal markets advi­sory as well as debt and stra­te­gic advi­sory. As an inde­pen­dent, priva­tely owned firm we main­tain offices and repre­sen­ta­ti­ons in Frank­furt, Munich, Zurich, Hong Kong and New York as well as strong alli­ances in the UK and Fran­cisco. www.acxit.com

News

The funds advi­sed by PREMIUM Equity Part­ners acquire heine­king­me­dia toge­ther with KEMPEN Private Markets Fund, Amster­dam, as part of a succes­sion solu­tion for the previous foun­ders and the MADSACK Media Group. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. — With a team led by Hamburg part­ner Dr. Stefan Duhn­krack, Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek provi­ded legal advice to funds advi­sed by PREMIUM Equity Part­ners GmbH on the purchase of heine­king­me­dia GmbH.

heine­king­me­dia GmbH is a fast-growing hidden cham­pion in the field of digi­tiza­tion of educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons and schools, both class­rooms and pedagogy as well as admi­nis­tra­tion. The product port­fo­lio includes colla­bo­ra­tive hard­ware and soft­ware solu­ti­ons (UCC / Unified Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and Colla­bo­ra­tion) that digi­tally opti­mize the flow of infor­ma­tion and commu­ni­ca­tion between educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons, schools, students, teachers and parents. More than 10,500 schools in Germany use the products and services of the market leader. Over 1.5 million users use its GDPR-compli­ant mobile apps, messa­ging apps, and colla­bo­ra­tive soft­ware solu­ti­ons. They are suita­ble for both class­room and distance lear­ning, as well as for colla­bo­ra­tive use in virtual meeting rooms.

By support­ing PREMIUM, heine­king­me­dia will make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to the digi­tiza­tion of schools and educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons and acce­le­rate initia­ti­ves such as those of the German fede­ral govern­ment under the Digi­tal­Pakt Schule to improve the digi­tal educa­tion infra­struc­ture. In addi­tion, PREMIUM will enable growth to expand and globa­lize the product port­fo­lio, parti­cu­larly in soft­ware and content solutions.

The foun­ders of heine­king­me­dia will move to the new company advi­sory board. As the new CEO, Markus Doetsch — supported by Annette Ohlich — will streng­then the manage­ment of heine­king­me­dia. Both have alre­ady successfully mana­ged growth compa­nies in the digi­ta­liza­tion sector in the past.

PREMIUM Equity Part­ners is an invest­ment company foun­ded in 2011 with a focus on strong niche compa­nies in the DACH region with reve­nues between EUR 10 million and EUR 50 million. PREMIUM invests capi­tal in the context of growth finan­cing, succes­sion solu­ti­ons and spin-offs. For each invest­ment, PREMIUM combi­nes its many years of tran­sac­tion and finan­cing expe­ri­ence with the indus­try know-how of its indus­trial part­ners. heine­king­me­dia is PREMI­UM’s eighth tran­sac­tion. The invest­ment of PREMIUM Mittel­stand Fund II GmbH & Co KG bene­fits from the finan­cial support of the Euro­pean Union under the Euro­pean Fund for Stra­te­gic Invest­ments (“EFSI”).

Advi­sor PREMIUM Fund: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Stefan Duhn­krack (Lead Part­ner, M&A)
Tim Peter­mann (Head of Due Diligence)
Dr. Hans Markus Wulf (IT)
Dr. Søren Pietz­cker, LL.M. (IP)
Dr. Hans Henning Hoff (Commer­cial)
Dr. Carlo Schmidt (Labor Law)
Dr. Matthias Kühn, LL.M. (Procu­re­ment Law)
Beli­ar­dis Ehlert-Gasde (due dili­gence), all Hamburg
Dr. Katha­rina Pras­uhn, (Due Dili­gence), Munich
Thomas K. W. Schrell. LL.M. (funding)
Anja Harms (Finan­cing), both Frank­furt am Main

News

Berlin — Raue advi­sed the two foun­ders of Karls­ruhe-based start-up Karls­ruhe Infor­ma­tion Tech­no­logy Solu­ti­ons — Kites GmbH (“Kites”) on the sale of the language trans­la­tion tech­no­logy provi­der to NASDAQ-listed Zoom Video Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, Inc. (“Zoom”) advi­sed. The trans­la­tion tech­no­logy will be used in Zoom meetings in the future.

Kites specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment of real-time machine trans­la­tion solu­ti­ons. The start-up has exis­ted since 2015 and is a spin-off from the Karls­ruhe Insti­tute of Tech­no­logy (KIT), where the two foun­ders are faculty members. Kites curr­ently employs twelve people, who will in future streng­then Zoom’s engi­nee­ring team from Karls­ruhe. The foun­ders will also remain with the team. Zoom intends to further expand the Karls­ruhe deve­lo­p­ment team and is also conside­ring estab­li­shing a rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment site in Germany.

Raue compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed the two foun­ders of Kites on the sale of the company to Zoom, in parti­cu­lar on corpo­rate, IP and employ­ment law issues as well as on the foreign trade clearance of the transaction.

Advi­sor to foun­der and share­hol­der Kites GmbH, Karls­ruhe: Raue, Berlin
Prof. Dr. Andreas Nelle, Photo (Lead, Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Markus Ples­ser (Part­ner, IP), Dr. Felix Stang (Part­ner, IP), Prof. Dr. Sascha Herms (Part­ner, Labor Law), Dr. Michael Berg­mann (Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Foreign Trade Law), Dr. Michael Gläs­ner (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A), Tatiana Gush­china (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A), Benja­min Lück (Asso­ciate, IP), Anja Piet­sch­mann (Asso­ciate, Public Law), Dr. Johan­nes Modest (Asso­ciate, Anti­trust Law, Foreign Trade Law)

News

Munich — ARQIS advi­sed Munich-based AI startup OCELL on their seed finan­cing round. With an opera­ting system for digi­tal forestry, OCELL helps forest mana­gers operate more effi­ci­ently and sustain­ably. Busi­ness angels from the BayStartUP inves­tor network are now inves­t­ing a high six-figure sum in this tech­no­logy under the leader­ship of Andreas Kupke (Finanz­check) and Wolf­gang Seibold toge­ther with the TUM Initia­tive for Indus­trial Inno­va­tors. The capi­tal injec­tion is supple­men­ted by a grant of over 500,000 euros. The capi­tal is to be used to improve products and quality and to expand the commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, marke­ting and sales departments.

The startup OCELL around the foun­ders Chris­tian Decher, David Dohmen and Felix Horvat has deve­lo­ped the “Dyna­mic Forest” app. It provi­des forest mana­gers with the ability to make scien­ti­fi­cally sound manage­ment decis­i­ons and imple­ment smoot­her forestry opera­ti­ons through an opti­mal data foun­da­tion. In addi­tion to digi­tiz­ing custo­mers’ exis­ting analog data sources, OCELL relies on aerial imagery coll­ec­ted speci­fi­cally with highly effi­ci­ent ultra­light aircraft. OCELL relies on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to evaluate the forest areas.

OCELL is an AI Company specia­li­zing in the gene­ra­tion and inter­pre­ta­tion of aerial imagery. — With its network of profes­sio­nal pilots and sophisti­ca­ted camera module, OCELL gene­ra­tes the best possi­ble image data from the air. Here, the quality is far beyond the capa­bi­li­ties of satel­li­tes and drones. As a data science firm, OCell focu­ses on deep analy­tics for its clients. For this purpose, know-how with data proces­sing, ‑filte­ring, photo­gram­me­try and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is applied.

The main custo­mer segment is forest mana­gers, helping them to better charac­te­rize, manage and protect forests from thre­ats. An addi­tio­nal market segment is infra­struc­ture moni­to­ring, where our capa­bi­li­ties in tree detec­tion and analy­sis help to avoid damage and delays.

“OCELL exci­ted us at ARQIS not only as a deep-tech topic, but also because we were able to provide very hands-on deal coun­sel for the seed finan­cing round with the foun­ding team and the expe­ri­en­ced busi­ness angels invol­ved,” says Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem, who was OCEL­L’s lead advi­sor. “As part of this finan­cing round, we were able to put the GESSI contract struc­ture we helped deve­lop into prac­tice for the first time, largely without a notary,” he adds.

Advi­sor OCELL: ARQIS (Munich)

Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (Lead Part­ner), Dr. Mauritz von Einem; Asso­cia­tes: Louisa Graf, Benja­min Bandur, Anselm Graf (all Venture Capital)

About ARQIS

ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 55 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. With the focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR.Law, Japan, Data.Law and Risk, the firm is geared towards provi­ding holi­stic advice to its clients. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

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